that to you, another breakdown, but it's 150 new positions over four years. >> supervisor cohen: 150 or 145? >> 145. >> supervisor cohen: so you want to add 145 new positions, and what is the cost of adding 145 new positions? >> it's approximately 21 million. >> supervisor cohen: right. so let's get back to what we're talking about on the budget committee, let's talk about the numbers. so we're talking about approximately $21 million, and let's put this in perspective. we've got home health care workers that many people have also advocates for, they're asking for $15 an hour, and they are asking for $34 million. we're talking about $21 million to add 145 new positions, and

kelly, correct me if i am wrong, it does include retirement and benefits? >> yeah. in the budgeted costs there, it does include retirement costs on behalf of the city, however, the long-term retirement obligations for the entire life of the officer are incorporated into our five year financial plans and included in the deficit should be officers be added as staffing. >> supervisor cohen: okay. so the other thing this body needs to take into consideration is the growing cost of health care. we've done our best in terms of forecasting and we're look at the scenarios that the actuarials have presented for us on what those costs are going to be. and i believe whatever is projected, we're going to be -- behind trying to keep up with the cost of health care is going to be very debilitating.

so to the chief, and my colleagues, i understand the desire to add new positions, from my perspective, i'm looking at this through a long-term lens, thhis is a huge budget reallocation and request, and a huge cost to the city. my apprehension is i haven't been convinced that 145 is the -- is a magic number. it's a round number, but i don't know it's where we need to be. what i propose is maybe approving one academy class and cutting another, and putting that other academy class on reserve, so that you can come back and think about it methodically. perhaps now that we are at this 1971 level, we don't want to be having an overabundance of officers. it's very expensive to carry there. another thing is many officers don't live in the city.

there are a lot of things that i think factor in this decision, and we've been deliberating on this for a long time. i think we're going to need over the weekend. chief, keep your phone on. b.l.a., keep your phone on. i'm going to move the conversation forward, and the next department we're going to hear from is the city attorney's office, but we are going to keep this conversation open, and we will see you on monday. >> all right. >> supervisor cohen: thank you to the police commission,nd thank you to kelly cohen. i will be presenting the department's slides that they presented just so i'm very clear. supervisor sheehy? >> supervisor sheehy: can i ask for one data number? can we get the numbers of crime, attach a cost to assault, to burglaries, is there some way to get some data on that because our taxpayers are paying either way, and they can either -- we can either

provide individuals to be on the street to prevent crime or we can have our residents of this city actually paying to repair car windows, to replace items stolen in burglaries, to pay for health care costs from assaults and other crimes. so i think we need to put that in balance and weigh the scale both ways. 'cause i hear from my residents, hey, i'm paying taxes, and i'm not being protected. and i'm a victim of a crime when i'm having to pay when there should be somebody preventing crimes. so we are talking dollars and cents. >> there are published reports, supervisor, and we will provide those. we will get those. >> supervisor cohen: thank you very much. thank you for humanizing that, supervisor sheehy. okay. so there's no action on this. mr. clerk, do we need to take action on this or can we just bring them back on monday? >> clerk: there's no action on this. >> supervisor cohen: okay. yes, ben?

>> just one suggestion would be while you're here would be to accept the budget analyst's base recommendations again, and we can again input those over the weekend. >> supervisor cohen: okay. supervisors, supervisors, i'd like to make motion to accept the b.l.a.'s baseline recommendations which is the department is in agreement with. if i can get a second on that. second by supervisor yee, and we'll take that without objection. [ gavel ]. >> supervisor cohen: thank you. okay. more to ucome, more fun. all right, dennis herrera, the floor is yours. thank you. >> thank you, supervisors. we are here to discuss as a follow-up to last week's meeting, i think there's really one -- only one item disagreement between the budget analysts and our avenues, aofft has to do with request for additional f.t.e.'s to handle

conservatorship and the transfer from the district attorney's office to the city attorney's office that will occur on january 1, 2019 by virtue of this board's action. as you will all recall, we did not seek out this work. we were asked to take it on by this board, and we are happy to do so. and we have been in communication with the district attorney's office to find out the level of the work since your legislation passed, and what we have determined is there are approximately 500 cases of work that are handled by the district attorney's office and it's our professional judgment that based upon that, that we -- and we made a request, that we need two attorneys and one legal assistant to perform that work. our initial request was that we would have two additional attorneys and a paralegal, and that work would start on january 1, 2019, and after

consultation with -- with the mayor's budget office, it was determined, and we said we could live with having one attorney come on on january 1, 2019, and one occur on july 1, 2019, and that the -- in terms of paraprofessional support, that that work could be done by a legal system and 8173 as opposed to a paralegal. i will say i've had an opportunity to review the budget analyst's report, and i would disagree with their recommendation that our request is based on our increase of homelessness and our pending legislation that can expand the definition of conservatorships. we made our request based on the existing work that exists at the district attorney's office now, and that is 500 cases. it is true that there is pending state legislatio, sb 1054, which was almost unanimously approved by the

state senate which will expand that beyond that what the current workload is, but we made our request based upon the current workload at the district attorney's office. the fact that this board has asked the city attorney's office to take this work on, i would imagine at least part of your motivation was that you want to see an improvement in the level of service and the level of work that is being performed. i want to do that job, i want to do that for you, i want to satisfy your policy objective. and i think that we can all agree that the situation that we see out on the streets right now is unacceptable, and it has been a focal point of this board as well as mayor elect breed to have our office handle conservatorships as at least one tool to help us address what we all agree is a crisis on the streets. and it is our professional judgment that in order to do

that work right, we need two attorneys, we need to have them start in 2019, and we have to have the additional support staff that we have requested. from my perspective, i would say that i know that the budget analyst is -- they may argue that we should come back in 2019 and have this discussion again about the second position, but in the event that we have that, we will have lost a lot of time and ability to ramp up to do this job effectively. as it is now, i'd rather have the positioned approved right now before january 2019 even comes so that we can ramp up, have a transition, and hit the ground running. but i'm willing to beiaccede t the mayor's budget office that we take that on january 1, 2019. you have to understand this is new work for us. we haven't done this work before.

oftentimes, this work is pain staking, it is litigation oriented, it is very, very detailed. there are strict legal requirements about when someone is conserved. oftentimes, there are defense counsel from the public defender's office that are involved in the proceedings, as well, and it is an ad versarial, as well. we have to make sure that we have staff to handle the work, but also make sure we have staff in the office that understands how to do it. so if someone is on vacation or the caseload is overwhelming, that we have more than one person that can do this work, do it well, and make sure we satisfy the policy electives of you and mayor elect breed. making sure that this office is doing our contribution to help the crisis that we see out on

the streets. oftentimes the folks that we see out on the streets are having mental health issues or drug issues. i disagree with the budget analyst's report, and i'd be happy to answer any questions that you have. >> supervisor cohen: thank you, mr. city attorney. i'd like to pivot to the budget and legislative analyst -- thank you. let's turn on his mic. thank you. >> is it on? >> supervisor cohen: yeah. >> madam chair and members of the committee. first of all, our recommended reductions to the proposed budget totals 269,578 in 18-19. all of those are one time saves. this would still allow an incres of 3.1 million or 4.8% of the recommended budget. they're all one time savings. these reductions would still allow an increase of 1,700,747.

as i understand it, you've heard from the city attorney, he does concur with our recommended reductions except for the one attorney position on page 24 of our report. now supervisors -- and i say this sincerely, i have the highest respect for the city attorney, mr. herrera. i've known him for a long time, and i have the highest respect. but this item, supervisors, is a classic -- and i emphasize, classic case of how government grows. so on page 24 of our report, we are recommending that you deny one full-time equivalent new 8177 attorney position proposed for handling civil conservatorship proceedings. as you know, the board of supervisors approved an

ordinance to allow the city attorney to appoint conservators, approximately 491 cases that's consistent with what the city attorney said, approximately 500 cases will be transferred from the district attorney to the city attorney on january 1, 2019. [please stand by for captioner switch]